Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/409

 IS77-] THE SPANISH TREATY. 389 Papacy behind them, intended to invade England, tear from her hands the imprisoned Queen of Scots, and lift her to the throne. She did not believe it. She waived aside the leadership of Protestant Europe so often thrust into her hands. Her sympathies were with established sovereigns, and order, and law, and she sought her friends among her own equals. Further and immediate, communication was now necessary with her brother-in-law. Among the Catho- lics or Anglo- Catholics at her Court (the words meant the same thing in all but dependence upon Rome), there was a certain Sir John Smith, a courtier, a believer in kings, an accomplished Spanish scholar, with an Eng- lish orthodoxy of creed, and an equally English con- tempt for the priests who were its ministers. Him Elizabeth chose for a second mission to Madrid, either to reside as ambassador there or to return, as might seem most expedient; at all events to explain her con- duct in the Netherlands, to renew her offer of mediation, and to require a more distinct protection for the English traders. Other ships had been seized besides Sir Ed- ward Osborne's, the seamen thrown into dungeons, and the cargoes confiscated. With the Netherlands problem returned upon his hands, the King, she thought, would see the necessity of now keeping the Inquisition under control. On Smith's arrival, the Spanish council assembled as before. The bigots tried their strength. The Bishop of Cuenca, like Hopper and Quiroga, insisted again that the Queen of England was a heretic; that God forbade